Rebellion of The Cows

A deep bell echoed loudly throughout every hall and classroom of Unsling High School. Eager teenagers burst through classroom doors, running towards the outside world.

“Freedom!” they all screamed.

Three boys, however: Omleck, Oliver, and Romeo, all from different classes, ran straight towards the bathroom.

“We’re all here! What did you want to talk about, Oliver?” asked Romeo.

“Well, you see. You know how I borrowed both of your phones to fix because I broke them last weekend showing off my juggling skills?

“Yeah…?”

“I was just kind of playing some games on the phones during class.” Oliver began.

“‘The phones plural?”

“Yep, all three.”

“All three of them?” Romeo screamed, “why the heck would you need to use three phones at the same time?”

“Well, it’s so much more efficient for gathering resources in Battle Cows. I got so many gems for you guys! But during first period, Ms. Prouty, my math teacher, just walks up to my desk and takes them – all three of them! And she tells me to get them from principal Grabhelslinger after class.”

“So…where are our phones?” asked Omleck.

“Umm, well, I tried to go to the principal's office after class, but he wasn’t there. And then I went to the front office; they didn’t know where he was. And then I walked around every hallway in the school, but he’s nowhere to be found!”

“Really? I’m pretty sure I saw him at school earlier during lunch, walking into that one door next to his office that’s always locked.”

Suddenly the bathroom door opened and a boy walked in. Everyone looked at the boy. The boy looked at them and walked back out.

“So, anyway, where’s this door?” asked Oliver.

“It’s on the left when we exit the bathroom,” said Romeo.

“Wait, maybe we should wait till tomorrow,“ said Omleck.

“Nah. Let's do it now! Otherwise I won’t get my daily reward on Battle Cows.” said Romeo.

The three boys exited the bathroom. Most people had already left to go home except for a few who were staring at their phones, still waiting for their car. They walked down the hallway to their left where the mysterious door was. Romeo looked around to make sure no teachers were nearby, but he saw one. The teacher walked down the hall with a big binder in one arm. As she made eye contact with Romeo, her pace suddenly accelerated.

“Go! Hurry! Someones coming!” Romeo whispered.

The three of them rushed through the door, sprinting down the stairs three steps at a time through the dimly lit circular stairwell. The only lighting they had was Omleck’s small orange flashlight ring, providing just enough light to see where the steps were and nothing else.

Behind them they could hear a muffled voice. “What are you doing? Stop!”

But they kept running until they reached a long hallway at the beginning of the stairs, not looking back until they turned into the first door they saw on the right, and they were sure they were safe. As they turned on the lights, a large room lit up. There were piles of brown cardboard boxes filling up almost half of the room. They all looked at each other, and Oliver, with a big smile on his face, ran over to the boxes and ripped one open. It revealed a big stack of notebooks.

“Wait, Oliver, that’s not our stuff.” Omleck ran over behind him.

Oliver ripped another one open, “Who cares?” There was a big look of disappointment on Oliver's face as he saw another stack of whiteboards and markers in the box, “Why is this all junk? Where’s the good stuff?”

“What did you expect, it’s a school,” responded Romeo as he came over.

“I'm just going to open all of them for fun.” Oliver jumped on top of another box and picked it up, “This one is really heavy!” Oliver said excitedly as he began to rip it open. But he was soon disappointed when he saw another bunch of blank, white pieces of paper. The boys sighed and sat back down on their red office chairs that they had found, and Oliver threw the box at the floor in anger. Suddenly there was a deafening “DING” as the box hit the floor. The boys jumped out of their chairs and looked at the box.

“Oliver!” Omleck yelled, “Why would you do that?”

“Ow, my ears hurt so bad!” Romeo said.

“Wait guys, look.” Oliver pointed at the black, metal box now sitting on the floor with all the papers, “I think that came out of the box.”

The boys gathered around the box, looking closely at it. On the front it said “Master Plan” with a small keyhole.

“Finally, something exciting!” Oliver said.

“Maybe this isn’t just a school,” said Omleck.

“Let's open some more boxes!”

The three boys excitedly jumped into the pile of boxes and started tearing boxes open. They opened a box, checked inside, and threw it over their shoulders. They made mountains of papers, notebooks, pencils, and more. Until Romeo yelled, “look at this.”

He opened a box with small, black, rectangular objects.

“What are those?” asked Oliver

“I'm not sure.” Romeo said with a confused look on his face

Omleck came over and looked inside, “Those are voice recordings!” He grabbed it and pressed the button.

“Chhh,” there was static noise, then suddenly a guy started talking:

Erm, hello, hello. This is Principal Grabhelslinger. After 10 long years, my amazing invention will finally be complete: The Intelligence grabber! I will absorb all these children’s intelligence, and be the smartest man on earth! We are currently testing it on a cow from the ranch next door to see if it works.

There was an interruption as someone began speaking in the background of the tape:

Principal Grabhelslinger! The machine is malfunctioning! It is absorbing too much intelligence. We must sto… MOOO!

The tape ended. Everyone was silent as they looked at each other. But slowly, a smile on everyone’s faces grew.

“Whoa! Cool! So, our principal’s evil and wants to steal our brains? And what was that cow sound at the end?” Romeo exclaimed.

“More Boxes!” Oliver shouted as he began ripping another box open.

“Umm, I'm not sure about this, guys.” Omleck’s face grew concerned. “Maybe we should wait till tomorrow to get our phones.”

Oliver jumped from box to box, throwing piles of junk over his shoulder, while Romeo dug through the piles of supplies left over from Oliver’s plundering, and Omleck sat in the corner with his hands on his face.

A few hours later, Romeo swam up from under the massive pile of stuff yelling, “I found something!”

The other boys turned to him excitedly, but the excitement quickly faded to disappointment when all they saw was a red notebook in his hand.

“Romeo, We know you like red, and you like notebooks, but there’s like a hundred of those,” Oliver said.

“No, look there’s stuff written in it!”

“Well I have a notebook with stuff written in it in my backpack, too,” said Omleck.

“Just come over here and look!” Romeo demanded.

Inside the notebook was a big drawing of the school’s second floor; the next page had a map of the first floor; the third page had a drawing of the basement with a big long hallway and a few others splitting off to the sides. However, drawn at the end of the third hallway on the left was a bold red arrow.

“See, there is something interesting here,” said Romeo.

“Ooh cool, I wonder what that arrow’s for? We should go there,” suggested Oliver

“Umm, I’m not sure. Maybe we should not follow that mysterious map? We might get in trouble” Omleck mumbled.

“Come on, Omleck, it’s just a little scavenger hunt. It’ll be fun!” Oliver exclaimed.

“Ok, let's stop this evil principal!” Romeo laughed sarcastically.

Oliver and Romeo ran out the door excitedly, while Omleck followed behind. They followed the map through the long corridors of the basement, until they reached a dead end where the arrow pointed. The three boys stood in confusion in front of a large wall.

“Umm, where’s the tunnel?” Romeo asked.

“Maybe we need to break the wall,” Oliver suggested.

“Oh! What if we go down that air vent down there.” Romeo pointed at a large three by three foot white vent in the middle of the wall.

“We’re gonna get so lost,” Omleck mumbled to himself.

“I’ll go first!” said Oliver.

He pulled the vent off and crawled into the hole head first, followed by Romeo and Omleck. With each step, their bones hit the hollow steel of the air vents, the deep metallic sounds resonating across the tunnel. After a while of crawling, the tunnel ended, and they emerged into another concrete hallway.

“Haha! I knew it!” yelled Oliver. His voice echoed back

“Echo!” Romeo yelled into the hallway, and the hallway echoed back to him.

“Stop yelling!” Omleck yelled, “What if there’s someone here?”

“What, you really think the principal is actually evil?” Romeo asked.

“Nah. That thing was probably just some project he was making.” Oliver ran down the concrete tunnel with dim lights across the ceiling.

“What is he talking about?”

“I think he’s right, Omleck,” Romeo said, “I mean, what are the chances that our principal really built some intelligence, grabbing things or something and is planning to steal everybody’s intelligence, and accidentally made a cow super smart.” He looked at Omleck’s shocked face. “That’s like straight out of a fantasy book.”

“But the voice recording clearly…” Omleck started to say.

“Like Oliver just said, it’s a fun project. You worry too much, Omleck.” Romeo responded

“I worry too much?” Omleck laughed, “Remember last week, when you were worried about a five minute walk home because you thought you were going to get kidnaped?”

“Well… that’s different.”

“But I still think the voice recording was real,” Omleck suddenly jumped up from the wall they were leaning on, “Oh wait! We need to go after Oliver!”

“Oh, I almost forgot about him.” Romeo got up and followed behind Omleck.

They walked down the dimly lit concrete tunnel for a few minutes until they reached a fork in the path. There were paths left and right.

“Oliver!”

“Oliver! Are you there?”

Suddenly, they heard a faint noise from the right tunnel that sounded like something crashing to the floor.

“That sounds like Oliver,” said Romeo.

They ran through the right path until they reached another fork with a left and right path.

“We should go left,” said Omleck

“No, we’re going right,” argued Romeo

“Left is better.”

“I disagree.”

Suddenly, a loud scream came from the left side.

“I told you so.” Omleck smirked at Romeo as the pair began sprinting towards the scream. They passed many more forks, but kept following the direction of the scream. As they got closer, the noise became deafening, but eventually, they found Oliver jumping and flailing all over the tunnel.

“Get it off of me!” Oliver jumped and rolled onto the floor.

“Oliver! What happened?” Romeo ran over to Oliver’s shivering body on the floor.

“Well I was running through here, and suddenly I felt something small hit my face, so I fell down. And then, I felt something tickle on my nose, so I looked down at it. It was a spider! And I don’t know where it went,” he stuttered.

“Ha, and you said I was a wimp?” Omleck said as he laughed.

“Hey, I was just uh scared it would bite me and poison me and I'd die!”

“Sure, Oliver. We believe you,” Romeo commented sarcastically.

“So…where did we come from?” asked Omleck. His face faded from laughing to worry.

“Hmm, that's a good question,” Romeo responded.

“It’s okay, It makes our adventure more exciting,” Oliver responded.

“But I’m hungry and thirsty, and I skipped lunch today. And my feet are tired.” Romeo complained

“Ok, fine. Follow me.” Oliver motioned towards the hallway on the left while the others followed him, “I think we went this way, and then left, and right and left again.”

They walked for a while, following Oliver’s seemingly random directions.

“And then I think we turn right here, and uh, hmm. I don't think this is the right path.”

“Oliver!” Romeo and Olmleck said in an exasperated voice.

“Ooh, there’s bright light,” Oliver pointed.

Up ahead in the hallway, there was an open door, emitting bright white lights, Illuminating the hallway. The three boys ran up to it and went inside. Inside, there was a circular light pointing downwards to light up some kind of machine. The machine had a cannon-like head with some kind of control panel at the base.

Oliver quickly ran up to the control panel pressing every button he could see, as Romeo went up to the front to examine what kind of contraption this was.

“Woah, Oliver. Don't press every button you see when you don’t even know what this – “

Omleck was interrupted by a loud buzzing sound, followed by a bright light coming from the front of the machine. Romeo screamed as he got pulled towards the cannon-like head of the machine.

The sound and light lasted for a few seconds, then died down, releasing Romeo from its grip.

“Woah! That was so cool, did you hear how loud that was. It’s almost like a cannon with the light and everything!” Romeo said, jumping around with his arms up in the air.

“Romeo, Romeo! Are you ok?” Omleck ran towards his body on the floor.

Romeo raised his head and looked at Omleck.

“Oh thank goodness, I thought it did something to you for a second,” Omleck said.

Romeo looked at him with a confused expression and grunted.

“What did you say, Romeo?”

Romeo walked away on all fours and grunted again. He licked the ground one then spit it back out, then wiped his tongue on his hand.

“Oh, I didn’t know you were that hungry?” Oliver said.

Romeo looked at him, grunted again and sat in the corner. Oliver looked at Romeo with a horrified expression as he realized what he might have done.

“Romeo, who am I?” Oliver asked, but Romeo ignored him.

“Oliver! This is exactly why I've been telling you not to keep being so reckless! Now look at what you’ve done to Romeo. He’s acting like a dog!!” Omleck yelled at Oliver.

Oliver looked down at the ground with guilt.

“Let's find a way out of here,” Omleck said with a disappointed look towards Oliver, “before you do something to me, too.”

The lights on the ceiling flickered ominously with dim light, and the air grew colder as they continued down the long concrete hallway. They walked in an awkward silence as Omleck held Romeo’s hand, and Oliver walked behind them, staring into the walls. A faint, steady beat suddenly broke the silence. The boys stared expectantly into the darkness, as the beat grew louder. Now they could tell the beats were footsteps. As the footsteps came closer, all they could make out was a large dark shadow.

“Grabhelslinger?”

However, this shadow was not human-sized. The blood drained out of Omleck’s face, when he saw the giant beast towering over him, almost double his height. It was a huge creature, double their height with two large “L” shaped horns on their head with a golden ring priced in their noses. They were almost bull-like, but standing on two feet. Oliver pinched his own cheek to make sure he wasn't dreaming, and Romeo froze still in terror.

“I think we should run,” Omleck said.

All three of them ran as fast as they could away from the cows, but when Oliver looked back, all of the creatures were on all fours sprinting after them. Suddenly, Romeo’s hand slipped from Omleck’s grip.

“Stop!” a deep voice yelled from behind.

“Uhh, they’re chasing us!” Omleck said worriedly, “And they’re surprisingly fast!”

“Did you know cows can run 25 mph? I learned that in biology,” Oliver said proudly.

“Not now, Oliver!” Omleck yelled.

Behind them, the cows were charging full speed, on all fours. The cows were catching up quickly. Suddenly from behind, Romeo’s body came flying forward, knocking Omleck into Oliver. They fell to the floor.

When Oliver woke up, he felt something heavy pushing against his chest. His eyes were adjusting to the bright light in front of him. He felt around with his hands, and felt a long scratchy surface across his arms and chest, securing his back to a large beam. As his eyes finished adjusting, he saw a long rope binding him to a pillar. To his left and right, Romeo and Omleck’s bodies were bound to the same pole, but they were still asleep. Suddenly, a painful throbbing pain came across his nose as he remembered Romeo’s heavy body knocked him face-first into the ground.

In front of him sat about 10 of the huge, hairy cow-like creatures sitting around the room.

“He’s awake!” One of the cows called.

The others came over to look at them.

“Hmm, they seem a bit smaller than the other ones.”

“Well, maybe humans come in different sizes?”

“No matter. We need to dispose of these humans before they can report us to Grabhelslinger.”

Oliver’s head looked up from the ground. “Grabhelslinger? Aren't you his minions?” Oliver asked.

All the cows turned to him and burst out laughing, “Us? Working with him?” The cows chuckled, “He’s the one that turned us into this…creature. We can’t even speak or understand our native language anymore. And it just feels like we have this constant throbbing headache all the time. Our brains were not built for this much power! We’ll never forgive you humans for this.”

“Well, you see. It seems you've been mistaken. I'm actually not human. We three are from the planet Krypton, you might not have heard of it though. It’s pretty far away,” Oliver said as he stuttered a little from his nervousness.

“Well you sure look like a human.”

“My kind can change our faces, so we’re actually on a secret mission to destroy Grabhelslinger. His devices are a big threat to our kind.”

“Oh, you think we're dumb, don’t you. We’ve absorbed the intelligence of humans, and we’re as smart as humans. So be quiet if you want your death to be quick,” the cow snapped as thrusted his hooves together, preparing to beat Oliver.

Oliver’s mind was racing, thinking what to say. What to do. Am I really going to die? I’m too young to die. Should I talk? Or take the quick death? I should have listened to Omleck and turned back.

A cow from the back walked up to the cow speaking in the front.

“I think I’ve heard about aliens back when I was on the farm. Some humans were saying that they come to earth in these big sky ships called UFO’s.”

“Yeah, Yeah, that's us.” Omleck laughed nervously.

The cows turned to each other and started whispering and nodding their heads. Relief hit Omleck as he could see a way out of this situation.

Then the cow continued, “Wait a minute. Don't these UFO’s steal cows, use them as test subjects and torture them?”

The rest of them began shouting angrily at Romeo.

“Off with their heads!”

“Wait, wait. Don’t kill us, I can explain. We just…” Oliver paused for a moment to think, “We raise them on our own planet, where they’re happier.”

“Ok…then prove you’re really an alien and change your face.”

What do I do! Well, I guess this is the end for me. Sorry Romeo and Omleck. I dragged you guys into this. But just as Omleck started to lose all hope, he remembered his nickname at school: “King of Faces”.

“Ok, watch this.” Oliver put his hands on his face, somehow pushing his jaw so far up that his bottom lip surrounded his nose. His eyes rolled so far up that only the white of his eyes were visible. Finally, he puffed out only one cheek and raised the opposite eyebrow, completing the ultimate face, called “Califace”. It was named after the ultimate weapon, Caliburn, for its pure destructive power to the mind. It is said in the local legend, that if one were to stare at this monstrosity for too long, their soul would be permanently damaged.

“Ahhh! No! Change back! We believe you now!” the cows yelled, shielding their eyes from his face.

“Ok. Now that you believe me, and we both have similar goals involving defeating the principal, we can work together. We can help you scout and blend in with the other humans, while you help us with your brute force if we ever need it.”

“Wait, you guys hate the principal, too?”

“Yeah, he captured us and put us in this school, and tortured us five days a week, forcing us to do his work and punishing us if we didn't,” Oliver said.

“That sounds horrible! You guys do seem trustworthy enough. I guess it would be helpful to have a scout that can blend in.”

All the cows looked at each other and nodded.

Just as they finished talking, Romeo and Omleck woke up. As they looked up, both of them squirmed and screamed for a second, and Oliver made a dramatic shushing movement.

“If you could untie us, I would like to speak with my buddies, so that they know you are our allies now.”

“Sure.”

One cow walked up to the rope, and with one pull, it instantly snapped in half. They all felt the blood rushing back into their arms and lower bodies. They felt weak, but Oliver pulled the other two to the other side of the room to explain their whole situation.

“Oh, wow. How did you manage to convince them we were aliens?” Omleck asked.

“You know my nickname at school? Yeah,” Oliver smirked.

“Ooh…I see. Poor cows.”

“What’s taking so long over there?” one cow asked.

“Nothing, we’re done,” Oliver said.

“We’re going to raid the lab now,” said the cows.

They followed the cows out the room they were in wondering where they were going. Eventually, the hallway widened, and they reached a huge garage door that could fit a large truck. One cow walked up to the door, put his hands at the bottom, and lifted it up. For the first time in what felt like days, they saw real sunlight. The light lit up the room and blinded the boys.

“This way,” the cow said. He pointed out the doors.

Finally, they could smell fresh air, and feel the cold, refreshing breeze again. Everything was so brightly lit, and the colors were so vibrant.

They continued walking around the building until they reached a wide double door on the side of the building.

“Right here,” the cow said.

Oliver went up to the door and pulled. The door was unlocked.

“I will go first,” Oliver said.

Omleck and Oliver left Romeo with the cows and went in the door. Cardboard boxes, small robots and strange contraptions filled the vast space inside the room. It was the robotics storage and test area right behind the robotics classroom.

Oliver signaled for the others to come in. Omleck and one of the cows came in behind him, leaving Romeo outside.

“Oh, this place brings back bad memories,” the cow said.

Just as everyone walked into the room, suddenly, the sound of a toilet flushing broke the silence. Everyone’s eyes widened and they looked at each other.

“Go! Go! Go!” Oliver whispered. He frantically motioned to the cow next to the doors to get out. The sound of sink water turned on. A cow tried to grab the door knob, but her hooves kept slipping on the circular door knob. A metallic click from the doorknob turning petrified the group as the door creaked ominously. The slit of light from the door grew larger until it finally revealed the shadow of a man, standing in the doorway. It was Grabhelslinger.

The boys and cow froze as he walked right past them with a hunched back, his eyes fixated on a large blueprint held in his arms. He went to a desk, and picked up a large gun-like contraption to examine it closely, looking back and forth between the contraption and the diagram. The gun-like machine was double the width of Grabhelslinger’s body in length, with several large blue rings connected by black steel rods to make the barrel. The head of the gun had four equally spaced eagle beak-shaped silver pieces, which split off away from the gun, then converged at the end of the barrel.

Suddenly, Grabhelslinger looked up at the pile of frozen boys and cows and smiled.

“Well, Well, what do we have here?” He laughed and crossed his arms. “My long lost test subjects and some unlucky boys.”

Oliver stepped forward, infuriated by the principal’s arrogance, “We know what you’ve been doing. Give Romeo back his intelligence!”

A cow stepped forward, “And take our intelligence back!”

“Don't be so mad, boy. Your friend there should be happy to have contributed to my research. And thanks to him and all my other donors, I’ve successfully created Intelligent animals!” the principal gushed. “Do you really think that your intelligence is more important than my research?”

Omleck spoke up, “You can’t play with our minds and human lives like this.”

“You children don’t understand the importance of my work. Not everything is about you. I am about to change the course of human evolution, so I don't have time to play with children.” He reached over his shoulder and grabbed the bazooka-like machine strapped to his back, “Well, I can’t let you just leave now that you know my plans.”

Oliver, realizing that negotiation was useless, whispered to the others, “We can’t leave now, we’ll never get another chance.” He looked to his right and saw a small path behind a shelf near the wall, “I need someone to distract him and make him look away from me.”

“So, what were you planning to use this device for anyways,” Omleck said.

The principal smiled, “Finally! Someone asks me about my work!” he said enthusiastically. “I guess I can tell you, since you asked.” The principal turned to grab a chair.

Oliver took this chance to slip into the space behind the shelf. It was dark back there besides a few slivers of light leaking in from in between the shelves. He ran to the other side of the room, where the selves ended.

The principal sat down on his chair with his, “Right now, the world’s intelligence is spread almost evenly between every person on earth. We are so inefficient. But now, with my new creation, I will change the world! By condensing everyone’s intelligence into less people, imagine how many breakthroughs there will be!”

“But what about all those people that you took intelligence from!” Omleck said.

The principal hesitated for a moment, “Well, all great things come with sacrifices. Now you can give me your intelligence, knowing that it will be used for the greater good of the world.”

A cow stepped forward, “Then come and get mine. I don’t want it.”

The cow got on all fours, and burst out running to his left, then turned to charge at the principal. The principal lifted his bazooka-like device and pointed it towards the cow. Suddenly, a cone of green light swallowed the cow.

When Oliver finally got to the other side of the room, he saw a bright green light fading, revealing the principal's back and the Bazooka-like device pointed at a fallen cow body.

Oliver walked as fast as he could, through the mess of parts and boxes, careful not to accidentally knock something over that would make a sound.

“Did you really think that would work, boy,” Oliver froze just ten feet from principal Grabhelsinger. Have I been discovered? But how? I didn’t make a sound.

Grabhelslinger looked at the cow as he mooed and struggled to get up, “A mere cow can’t stop my genius master plan.” Oliver sighed in relief. As he got within five feet of the principal, his heartbeat became faster.

The principal looked at Omleck standing alone by the door, “Wait, where did the other boy go?”

Oliver crouched behind him preparing his body for take off and aiming for the device. Suddenly, Grabbhelslinger turned around, making eye contact with Oliver. It was now or never.

Oliver leaped forward, latching onto Grabhelslingers back like a piggyback ride. He swung his body around and locked the principal’s knees with his legs, attempting to knock him over.

“Where did you come from?” the principal yelled as he struggled to keep balance.

Finally, Oliver swung his momentum backwards. As they fell, Oliver realized he would hit the ground first. His lower back slammed into the floor with all of his weight, plus all of the large principal’s weight, but with all the adrenaline flowing through his body, he could barely feel it.

Oliver rolled over, pushing Grabbhelslinger’s heavy body to the left. He spotted the intelligence machine in the principal’s right hand and latched onto it with his whole body, like it was his favorite stuffed animal.

“Get off, little boy!” he yelled.

The principal pried Oliver’s body off of his hand and intelligence machine until only his hands held on.

“No! I can’t let go!” Oliver said.

Oliver looked at the principal and used the intelligence machine to swing his body at him with a flying kick. The kick landed solidly straight on his chest, knocking the device out of his hands and sending him flying backwards. With the device in his arms, Oliver jumped away, pointing the device at the charging principal. Oliver felt around the device and pressed anything that could be pressed. Finally something clicked on the device, and the cone of greed light appeared and swallowed the principal.

The light faded away and revealed Grabhelslinger sitting on the ground motionless, with his legs straight forward and arms down to the side. His eyes, so wide they were almost round, stared into space in the direction of Oliver with his mouth wide open, a slightly tilted head, and a small string of drool from his mouth hanging down to his lap. Oliver kept watching Grabhelslinger. The principal moved. His arm pushed himself up, and he looked around.

The principal looked around in confusion and then looked at the boys. He tilted his head and let out an uncertain, “Moo?”

The boys watched him wander around, exploring the piles of boxes, suppressing the urge to laugh.

“Grabhelslinger? Are you smart?” Olmleck asked as he walked besides Oliver. But the principal was more interested in the pile of cardboard boxes than the conversation.

“I think we did it!” Oliver raised his arms in victory.

“Wait, Romeo!” Omleck said.

They both ran back out the doors where Romeo was sitting outside with the rest of the cows.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get you back, Romeo,” Olmleck said to himself.

“Hmm, I wonder if there’s like a reverse button for this intelligence grabbing machine,” Oliver said as he looked around the bottom of the machine where he had found the trigger before. He discovered a bunch of labels stuck on to the bottom. One said “FIRE” with a big button underneath. Another was labeled “GIVE/TAKE” which had a lever that was switched to the right side.

“Maybe if I switch this to the left it’ll be on “GIVE” mode and then if I press this?” He pointed the device straight at Romeo, and a big red light engulfed him for a few seconds. Oliver and Romeo stared at him with anticipation. Romeo looked at them and tilted his head in confusion.

“What? Even that didn’t work?” Oliver said.

Omleck sighed in disappointment.

“What didn’t work? And why are we in the robotics storage room?”

Oliver and Omleck turned to see who spoke.

“Romeo?”

“What did you say?”

“I said, how did I get here?”

“Romeo! It worked!” Omleck said.

“You’re back!” Oliver said, tossing the intelligence machine behind him, as he inspected Romeo.

They all exchanged relieved smiles, realizing Romeo was back, and their adventure had finally come to an end. The cow, now back to its original form, walked up to them, using all four legs, and mooed, as if to say, “Thank you!”

All the boys returned home, and donated the cows to a dairy farm.